“You haven’t,” Tarlyon grinned. “But mine was just a manner of speaking.” He knew his man; and there passed over Red Antony’s face that earthquake and tornado which was given him for a smile and a laugh.
“Hell! Always the same Tarlyon! How are you, George?”
“Monstrous,” says George.
“But there is no sensation in matter,” boomed Red Antony, crushing his hand.
“And this,” said Tarlyon, waving his other towards me, “and this, Sir Antony, is your old friend Ralph Wyndham Trevor, whom you may quite have forgotten, since you owe him a hundred pounds.”
Another earthquake across that vast red expanse, so that I feared for the sleep of those mythical Jews....
“Dear old Trevor—fancy having kept you waiting all this time! Here you are, man, here you are.” And from somewhere inside his cloak he jerked a pocket-book into my hand and crushed it against my palm. “You can keep the change, old boy, as you’re younger than I am and look as though you need it. Always take vegetables with your meat, Trevor.”
“I hate to take money from an impoverished baronet,” I got in, just to goad him.
“Impoverished nothing!” he boomed, and swung on Tarlyon, who backed a step. “D’you remember, George, that Roger always said I had a flair for making money——”
“But he added,” Tarlyon said, “that you hadn’t got the brain of a louse to back that flair up with.”